


Guilt

by SyverneSien



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Guilt, I'm Sorry, It wasn't actually Tom's fault the Darkness is just really good at manipulating people, Jordan is possessed by the Darkness, Possession, Realm of Mianite, for the nerf house :)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:27:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24723022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyverneSien/pseuds/SyverneSien
Summary: “Ianite and balance were the two things that Jordan cared about more than anything,” the Darkness murmured. “You stole his goddess, his title of champion, despite everything he’d done for her… and you were never even loyal to her, weren’t you, champion of Dianite?”Tom is forced to deal with the consequences of his actions.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 39





	Guilt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [transvav](https://archiveofourown.org/users/transvav/gifts).



Jordan had been missing for almost a week. His house and island were completely abandoned, and Tom hadn’t managed to find any trace of him on any of the surrounding islands either. Karl had noticed slower than Tom had, but they had long (if a few days was long) since put aside their oppositions and decided to work together to find him. The only one that refused to help was Declan - every time Tom asked, he just muttered something about Jordan being gone and closed the door in Tom’s face.

It wasn’t odd for Jordan to disappear off on journeys, but it was odd to leave no message, not even a note on his door saying that he’d gone. Karl joked that Tom had moved into Jordan’s house in his absence, with the amount of time the zombie was spending on Jordan’s island, hoping that Jordan had just forgotten to leave a note and would appear on the horizon, some new treasure in hand. But Jordan didn’t appear.

First, Tom prayed to Dianite. He was Tom’s true god, the reason he’d gone undercover on Ianite’s side in the first place. A whole chest full of sacrifices and a neatly-penned note on top with a simple request for Jordan’s location, and a small clarification at the bottom that he wanted to know that Jordan was alright, not bring any harm to the Ianite champion. Tom waited for two days, but there was no response from the chaos god.

Then Tom turned to Ianite. She was Jordan’s god - surely she would help find him and make sure that her champion was okay. Tom wasn’t sure exactly what kind of sacrifices the balance goddess preferred, but he made some assumptions and hoped that the cause was enough to make up for any lacking. The sacrifices bundled into a chest and left on the top of Jordan’s tower with a sealed prayer to Ianite, Tom waited and hoped. No response again.

Karl must have prayed to Mianite because he turned up on Tom’s island to ask him about responses from the other gods. Tom’s face was sour when he shook his head, and the look of disappointment on Karl’s face was heartbreaking. Oh, the gods would help them  _ kill _ each other with weapons and armour, but asking the gods to help them  _ help _ each other was impossible. Jordan was missing and there was nothing they could do about it.

Declan continued to be stubborn and unresponsive. He’d locked himself away in his tower the first day that Jordan had been missing, which made Tom think he’d had something to do with it. But all Dec would say after days of pressing was ‘give up, Tom - he’s not coming back’, and no amount of knocking got Dec to open the door again.

Tom had taken up feeding Jordan’s pets for him while he was gone. There was something so torturous about the expression on Jimmy’s face every time Tom appeared instead of Jordan. Maybe the stress of looking for Jordan was getting to him, but Tom had developed a soft spot for the little turtle. On one particularly tiring day, Tom apologized to the turtle for stealing him, way back when.

One morning, when Tom woke up, there was a tiny envelope on the floor. It had his name on it, scrawled in handwriting that Tom recognized instantly as Jordan’s. Heart pounding in his ears, Tom dove out of bed and snatched up the envelope, tearing it open with his fingers. The note was unmistakably Jordan’s penmanship, but the contents…

_ Tom, _ it read.  _ If you would like to see me again, come to the top of the volcano at midnight tonight. Tell nobody. _ There was no signature.

Tom re-read the words over and over again, trying to find another meaning. Had somebody taken Jordan captive? If he had been captured, then… how was the note in his handwriting? It seemed too neat, too deliberate, to have been forced out of him. Tom didn’t know what to think. There was only one option - meet Jordan at the top of the volcano at midnight, and be prepared for anything. If the note hadn’t deliberately said to tell nobody, Tom would have brought Karl, but he didn’t want to risk it. For once, Tom would play by somebody else’s rules.

Dusk came and went, and Tom made sure that he had his strongest armour and weapons at the ready. He said goodnight to Karl, omitting the note from their conversations, and pretended that he was going straight to sleep. A creeping feeling of unease trickled down Tom’s spine as the sky darkened to the colour of pitch. There was no moon to light his way, just tiny pinpricks of stars against the black void of space.

Tom climbed to the top of the volcano and waited, watching the time tick forward towards midnight. His sword hung at his belt and he kept one hand on the hilt, ready to draw just in case. He would be able to see Jordan coming, he was sure. His watch struck midnight and Tom tensed.

Then the air in front of Tom bent away, ripping a hole in the sky, and Jordan stepped into view. A bubbling pool of lava stood between them, filling the environment with the unmistakable presence of death.

“Jordan?” Tom breathed. On the surface, he looked exactly as Tom remembered him, but something was stopping Tom from rushing around the edge to greet his friend. Jordan smiled and Tom recoiled violently. Something was  _ definitely _ wrong. Jordan wore no armour, had no weapon to be seen… and yet every alarm bell in Tom’s mind told him that he was in danger.

“Tom,” Jordan greeted simply, his tone cold and unemotional. The captain’s blue eyes were dark and empty, staring directly at Tom and yet seeming as if they didn’t see Tom at all. “I’m glad you decided to come.” Jordan had always been so full of life - it was odd to see him standing so still, every movement sharp and… forced.

Tom had never been the fastest on the uptake, but it didn’t take him long to pin down the buzzing anxiety in his brain. “No. No, you’re not Jordan. Who are you and what do you want?” Tom demanded, trying to sound fierce. “What have you done with the real Jordan?”

Jordan chuckled dangerously. “How do you know I’m not Jordan?” he asked, head tilted gently to one side. “You never did know me that well, Tom…” Jordan’s voice was like a snake’s hiss, slow, controlled, and every word screaming at Tom to  _ run. _

“I don’t want to play your stupid game!” Tom covered his ears with his palms and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ground himself.  _ Don’t take your eyes off of him! _ Tom’s eyes flew open again and he glared, chest heaving, at Jordan. “Why… why did you call me here?”

Jordan hummed and leaned forward over the lava, his hands folded neatly - in a way that Jordan never would - behind his back. “I thought you deserved a chance,” Jordan drawled, “to surrender. He cared for you like family, you know.”

“ _ ‘He’ _ ?” Tom repeated. His brain chimed with repetitions of ‘I knew it’ and the pure fear that came with knowing that there was no chance of this being Jordan anymore. Tom drew his sword, balancing the weight in his right hand. “Why do you want me to surrender? Too scared to fight me?” The words fell off his tongue before he could stop them, and Tom regretted them instantly.  _ Don’t taunt him, idiot! _

In a flash, not-Jordan had crossed over the mouth of the volcano and his hand had closed around Tom’s throat. Tom choked and dropped his sword, watching helplessly as it tumbled down the side of the mountain.

“No,” not-Jordan replied quietly. “Because it would hurt more to force you to live with what you’ve done.” The vice around Tom’s throat disappeared and he crumpled to the ground, gasping for air.

“What I’ve- what  _ I’ve _ done?” Tom managed, wheezing. He scrambled to his knees, cursing the fact that he hadn’t brought a second sword. “I didn’t… I didn’t…” Tom’s face fell. “You don’t mean-”

“Oh yes, Tom.” Not-Jordan smiled crookedly. “Your little  _ game? _ Your little  _ facade? _ You were so busy playing make-believe with Ianite that you didn’t even realize that you were driving your best friend… to  _ me. _ ”

Something clicked in Tom’s mind. “You’re the Darkness,” he muttered, slowly getting back to his feet. “You… I don’t believe you. Jordan would  _ never _ join you willingly!” Tom jabbed his pointer finger at the Darkness, but even his denial couldn’t stop the whispers of ‘but what if he did, and it was your fault?’ that danced around inside Tom’s skull.

The Darkness laughed. “ _ ‘Never’ _ ?” he quoted back to Tom. “You hold him in such high regard… he accepted my gifts, Tom. The potion of darkness, which you rejected? Jordan took it. My prized gem? Jordan took it. He was always going to come to me, one way or another.”

“I… I…” Tom stammered, raising one hand to his temple. His head was spinning. “He was… jealous?” Fierce desperation clouded his thoughts. It couldn’t be true. The Darkness was lying to him. That had to be it.

“Ianite and balance were the two things that Jordan cared about more than anything,” the Darkness murmured. “You stole his goddess, his title of champion, despite everything he’d done for her… and you were never even loyal to her, weren’t you, champion of  _ Dianite? _ ”

Tom didn’t know what to believe. He wanted to think that Jordan was steadfast and true, that he would never abandon Ianite nor his friends, but on the other hand… if he’d been driven to it… if  _ Tom _ had driven him to it… Tom couldn’t say for sure that Jordan would have stayed.

The Darkness seemed to find Tom’s tortured silence amusing. “It was your fault,” Jordan’s voice, but no longer Jordan’s soul, purred. “You’re responsible, Tom. When these islands are all crumbling into dust at my hand, your friends will be able to look at you and say ‘there, there’s the man that drove Jordan away’. And they’ll be  _ right. _ ”

“Stop…” Tom mumbled, bringing his hands up to his face. “Stop. Please, stop.” He stumbled backwards, boots scraping against the stone. He wanted out. He couldn’t face Jordan any longer. “Don’t… I didn’t  _ mean to. _ ”

“You didn’t mean to?” The Darkness chirped mockingly. “You didn’t  _ mean to. _ Oh, because that makes it so much better, doesn’t it? Your closest friend is gone forever but you didn’t  _ mean to _ drive him away, so I guess it’s alright. You didn’t care enough about his feelings to realize how much you were hurting him, which makes it  _ okay. _ ” Each new statement felt like a punch in the gut, shattering Tom’s view of the world until he wasn’t sure if what he was seeing was real.

Deliberately, Tom staggered off the edge of the mountain, leaping down onto a ledge. He had to get away. The descent should have been made carefully but Tom didn’t care if he tripped - it would just be a faster way back home, though Dianite might be annoyed. Oh, Dianite… it was Dianite’s fault, wasn’t it? Dianite had pushed Tom into ‘joining’ Ianite.  _ But who pushed the act so far? Who should have noticed that his friend was leaning towards joining the Darkness? _

Tom thought he’d escaped, but the Darkness quickly reappeared in front of him once he reached the bottom of the mountain. He was weighing Tom’s sword in his hands and had Tom been less unsettled, Tom would have snatched it right there and then.

“Do you want this?” The Darkness taunted. “Would you like to use it on me, Tom? To take out your  _ anger _ on me?” He spun it around to hold the blade and then tossed it hilt-first to Tom so that Tom could catch it in his hand, which Tom did, albeit a bit slowly. “Attack me if you want. Show me how much you  _ hate _ me.”

Tom gingerly bounced the sword in his hand. “I-I don’t think I can-” he started. He didn’t feel angry, he felt upset. Betrayed. Guilty. Lost.

“Go on,” the Darkness prompted, spreading his arms to the sides. “I won’t even fight back. Show me the monster that gave me my most valuable ally.”

_ Monster. _ Tom’s hands shook and he cast the sword away as if it had burned him. He was a monster, wasn’t he? A zombie. Even if he had a mind and a heart, he would still always be a zombie. Karl  _ (and Jordan) _ would always be human, and he wouldn’t.

The Darkness was staring at him. “Did I strike a nerve?” he asked curiously, stepping towards Tom. “Is that something that  _ bothers _ you, Tom?” The Darkness seemed to catch on quickly. “You’ve always been different because you’re not human like them. You’re just a zombie that happened to stumble upon sentience. They never  _ really _ trusted you.”

_ Change the subject. _ Tom fell to the side, leaning against a tree. “Are- are you going to tell the others?” Tom choked on his words. “Tell them… what I did?” Green skin, blotchy and falling off in places. Hollow eyes.  _ Monster. _

“No.” The Darkness grinned, stretching Jordan’s features in a way that sent chills down Tom’s spine. “Why don’t you tell them yourself?”

There was a snap of fingers and a strong rushing of wind, and suddenly, Tom found himself standing in Declan’s tower, before Karl and Dec. He looked up, seeing the Darkness standing behind Karl, and met the Darkness’ eyes. The Darkness winked.

“Tom?” Karl sounded confused as he got up and moved towards the zombie. “What are you-”

Tom held up his hand and Karl trailed off. He took a shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth to speak.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thanks again to the Nerf House for inspiring this!  
> As they say on Drawfee... I'm sorry!  
> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
